by Laura London
“Half?” I couldn’t keep the fright from my voice.
“The other half wants to carry you to that bed of leaves and love you until sunrise,” he said dryly. “Do you think you could help a little?”
“What should I do?” I asked, looking at him in helpless misery.
“Lace yourself up, for God’s sake. With the moonlight on your skin, you look damnably irresistible.”
I tried to do as he requested, but my hands were shaking so badly that he had to do it, though he swore and said I was an incompetent little fool. At his words, the tears that had been shimmering in my vision overflowed, and I felt them run down my cheeks.
“Don’t, Liza.” His voice was raw. “Don’t start that. Don’t make me take you in my arms again. I don’t think I could rip myself from you a second time.”
I took two steps back from him and rested my hand against the rough bark of the tree behind us.
“Who is the lady you need to forget?” I asked in a low voice, hating myself for asking. “Is it Isabella?”
“Isabella?” he said wearily. “Don’t be ridiculous. It didn’t mean anything; and I didn’t know I was talking to you.” A breeze ran through the branches over our heads, sending a few old leaves somersaulting to the ground. “Or maybe I did. Your body was so strangely familiar,” he said softly.
I said, “Like an old shoe you thought misplaced.”
“And would still like to slip into,” he said. “Don’t let’s flirt, sweeting. This is Thursday, and on Thursdays I never seem to have much self-control.”
Anger shot through my chest like an explosion of icy splinters. “No, I suppose not, accustomed as you are to taking your pleasure where you please.”
“What do you want, my pet? An all-inclusive apology for the impure course of my life?” he said. “Or will it content your blushing vanity if I hold you like this”—his fingers seized my shoulders and pulled me against him with unthinking brutality—“and let you feel what it’s like to have a man want you? And I do want you, Liza. Would it interest you to experiment with all the facets of that? Let’s see, what was it that you wanted to know? Ah, yes, about Isabella. Would you like to learn how to play with the style—” His hands traveled over me with savage fluid strokes and his lips took mine with expertly erotic cruelty.
When at last he let me breathe, the air came from my lungs in a frightened whimper. He heard it, and I was released instantly. A minute passed as I stood listening to his breathing surrender back into the bands of his iron control. Finally, he said, “That was a damnable thing to do. Forgive me, Liza.”
My blistered heart was too heavy with grief to listen to his apologies. I heard myself yelling, “Why ever, my lord? I’m flattered that you find my half-breed countenance acceptable to your cultured tastes, especially since I remember a time when you found it none too appetizing, so you said when you first found me in the library with Robert.”
“Does that rankle still?” he asked tersely. “I suppose you would rather I encouraged him. If only I’d known! I could have said, ‘Yes, she’s a beauty, and if I were you, I’d waste no time in having her. Fetch me when it’s my turn.’ ”
“No! No!” I cried, letting the old, unburied pain of it spill from me like boiling water from cracked clay. “You would have left me with Robert, if you hadn’t noticed my father’s medallion and decided to use me against Vincent. You’ve had me scrubbed and shod and taught the difference between a fish fork and a fruit fork, and you’ve dressed me in gorgio clothes, and now I’ll do for Thursdays.”
Sorting through this in remarkably short order, he said, “I wouldn’t have left you to Robert, even if I hadn’t seen the medallion.”
“Then you would have had me hung for poaching your foxes!” In spite of myself, I felt a tear splash, cold and wet on the curve of my cheek.
“The word is hanged. No, I wouldn’t have. Do you think I believe in killing children for misdemeanors against my property? However little you seem to feel that I cared what happened to you, you know damned well that I care too much for Robert to let his excesses run to self-destructive acts like taking terrified peasant girls by violence. As for finding you unappetizing, we’ve already covered that subject more thoroughly than we should have, when one considers that I’m supposed to be acting in the capacity of your guardian. What else have you on your list? I’m fascinated!” Taking my hand, he brushed his lips softly across my palm. He said, “Hang it, Liza. Are you drunk?”
“No! Why do you ask?”
“Your hand reeks of spirits.”
“It must have been the satchel. The book said it had to be soaked in wine, you see, and Ellen was adamant.”
Like an actress answering a cue, her breathing short and sharp as if she had been running, my friend appeared at the edge of the clearing twenty yards away. With a cry that lay between a sob and a gasp, I heard her call, “Liza!”
Because she was so distraught, and because I was so relieved to see her, I ran toward her into the moonlight, crying, “Ellen! Ellen!” without thinking how Brockhaven must have looked to her, standing black and threatening under the dark roof of the trees.
“Liza! The werewolf!” Ellen screamed, her voice cutting through to a new plane of terror. “It’s after you!” Before I could tell her it was Brockhaven, she said, “The meat! I’ll throw it the meat!” She grabbed wildly in the satchel, pulled out the joint of beef, drew back her arm with the grace of a discus thrower, and sent the opium-soaked meat soaring across the clearing to land with a soggy crash two feet from the polished tips of Brockhaven’s boots.
I’m not sure whether it was his encounter with me, being called a werewolf, or having a heavy object hurled at him in the dark, but the meat toss put the final nudge to Brockhaven’s toppling temper. I had never seen anyone move so fast. In less space than it takes an acorn to hit earth, Brockhaven had us collared and dragged back to the hideously oozing pile of red meat.
“What in the name of heaven is that?” he rapped, pointing.
“Th-that? That is opium s-soaked b-beef to d-drug the werewolf,” Ellen said, shakily but succinctly.
Brockhaven looked at her incredulously. “I’m crossing you off the very small list of people I know who aren’t complete idiots.”
I had to admire Ellen’s spirit as she looked him full in the face and replied, “Well, you d-didn’t catch it, d-did you?”
“What you are going to catch, Ellen, my dear,” he said with silky sweetness, “is not a werewolf. In my life I have heard of some hare-brained escapades, but this one defies description. Are you two out of your minds?”
Chapter Ten
Let it not be supposed that one caustic sentence would be all that Lord Brockhaven had to say about finding us in the May Day forest. His remarks were lengthy, withering, and peppered with deprecations on our characters that I would not care to repeat. When finally he began to wind down, he said, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “Is it just the two of you, or are there another half dozen of your friends skipping around in the dark somewhere?”
“No, no,” said Ellen, “only us two. I thought it w-would only be safe for Liza if we didn’t tell anyone.”
Brockhaven gave her an arrested look; his eyes narrowed. “Did you, by God? You and I are going to have a talk about this tomorrow, child. It seems to me you’ve been doing altogether too much thinking.”
Ellen pulled her cloak tighter about her and stared at him with great pansy eyes. “I c-care what happens to Liza, that’s all.”
Far off in the underbrush we heard a crash and suddenly I recalled the discordant howl that had so recently rent the night’s taut fabric. Meeting Lord Brockhaven had driven it completely from my mind.
“I heard it again tonight,” I said.
Almost as though he didn’t want to, Brockhaven admitted, “So did I, just before you nearly skewered me, Liza. Oh, I see now. You thought I was the werewolf too. Do you know something? A werewolf would pose less menace to the unsusp
ecting local population than the pair of you out here tossing assorted grotesqueries at anything that moves. What’s this about a book telling you to soak meat in opium? Was it a book you found in Robert’s study? By God, if I ever find you in there again searching through one more discreditable volume, Ellen, I swear I’ll lay the whole before your mother, which is what I ought to do anyway.”
“I am sorry about the meat, Alex,” Ellen said, in an appropriately cowed voice. “But don’t you think it shows that Liza and I weren’t bad at defending ourselves?”
Lord Brockhaven’s expression was sardonic indeed, but he forbore to comment, so Ellen went on, “I also heard the howl! It was hideous! Indescribable! Alex, please, couldn’t we three go now and hunt for it?”
“What a wonderful idea,” marveled Brockhaven. “We could start out at once, except that the howl didn’t originate from anywhere near here. Sound echoes back from the bluff so the… whatever howled must have been up the cliffside, miles away. It would be useless to try a chase without dogs.”
Then, from up the verge, we heard the discordant notes of the reveler’s band coming in our direction. All pretense of a tune had been dropped in favor of a kind of squealing fervor in which duration and volume took precedence over meter and harmony. There was the snorting and stomping of excited horses and the slurred chorus of “Farmer Shortroot’s Courtship.”
“It needed only this,” said Brockhaven. “Damn it all, they’ve seen us.” Scooping up my mask from where it had fallen under the tree, he handed it to me, saying curtly. “Cover your face. Have you got one too, Ellen? Thank God for that much. Put it on, and if anyones tries to take it off you, scratch his eyes out. I mean it, do you hear?”
From the midst of the clamoring concatenation came a greeting, tossed up like a ragged bit of seaweed from a nasty surf: “Ho there! What’s going toward? Ménage à trois: Is it a private affair or can anyone come?”
“Oh, please, Lord Brockhaven,” I said in an agitated whisper. “Can’t we hide in the woods until they’re gone?”
“It’s no use; they’re drunk as brewers’ cats,” he answered. “Like as not, they’d make a game of chasing us through the trees. Just keep your mouth shut and leave the talking to me. Don’t blame me if you each receive a score of bawdy propositions. I didn’t ask you to come here.”
They were upon us and we were mired in a flood of torch light and the scents of wood smoke, wine, and horses. It was the group from the ruins, with John Lennox on horseback in the lead. He reached down to ruffle Brockhaven’s hair affectionately, and offered him the wine skin, which my guardian accepted cheerfully. Entreaties rang out through the ranks for Robert to come forward and guess who they had found here.
Robert edged through the crowd on his gelding. The girl he had been kissing by the fire was perched pillion behind him with her arms low around his waist, her cheek resting on his back, and a silly satisfied smile on her face. Her eyes were closed, and I don’t think she could have opened them to look at us if she’d wanted to. As for Robert himself—his hat was askew, his hair down in his eyes, and he had a swag of spring flowers draped rakishly across his body like a bandolier.
“Alex, dear fellow,” he said with a mellow smile. “Have you finished dining with Bredon? What a meal he must have served.” He indicated us with a wave. “Were these two among the hors d’oeuvres or did you find them floating in the punch?”
I heard Brockhaven say something caustically under his breath about who’d been floating in the punch. In a louder voice, he said meaningfully to Robert, “Neither. They’re pure spring lamb.”
Peregrine Absalm looked to be in worse condition than even Robert. He stood halfway up in his stirrups, weaving dangerously, with his guitar hanging from a twisted strap at a horizontal angle on his back.
“Did you know, little lamb,” he said to me with a hiccup, “that I’m quite a shepherd?”
“The big bad wolf, more like,” said John Lennox with amusement.
“Never, Johnny, he’s a shepherd all right,” laughed the slim girl who had been walking beside Lennox, her long arms spread in a serpentine weave around his lee. “Though his staff’s crooked, poor thing, and he falls asleep on the job.”
There was a roar of laughter while a boy I recognized as an older brother to Ellen’s friend Claire leaned from his saddle and plucked at me, barely managing to make the maneuver without toppling to the ground.
“Don’t need a shepherd anyway,” he said, “needs a ram!” He reached for me again, this time with such improved precision that I had to step back quickly to avoid capture.
Nestling me protectively under his arm, Brockhaven said, “Oh, no, I’ve already claimed the wench.”
Laughing repartee labeled Brockhaven as a dog in the manger, and my guardian saw fit to prove himself guilty as charged by placing a lingering kiss on my lips, to general approval, and I had no choice but to submit. Under the cover of cheers and bawdy remarks, he got Robert’s attention by firmly grabbing his arm and saying, “The other girl’s for you.” There was a wealth of meaning ladled into Brockhaven’s tone, and one eyebrow was raised in faint suggestion, but Robert was too well-steeped to catch the nuances.
“Is she now?” said Robert. “Here’s generosity!” Robert’s eyes swept boldly over Ellen. “Come to me, darling—let’s see what you’re made of.” He dismounted, landing usteadily, and slid his arms around Ellen’s waist. “How do you do, angel? Show me how you do.” He brought his lips hard down on Ellen’s.
Ellen did her best. In a fair imitation of the memorable Countess T., she threw her arms around Robert’s neck and wound her fingers in his thick hair, as well as “letting her lips fall open like a tulip parting for the dew, and pressed herself to him with wanton pleasure.” From where I was standing, it looked like a very good effort. But Robert knew better. He had too much experience not to recognize the kiss of a green girl.
“Good lord!” he exclaimed, releasing her abruptly. He looked at Brockhaven. “You brought her for me?”
“Let us say rather that she brought herself. And it would seem a very good idea to return her from whence she came in the same condition,” said Brockhaven, not mincing matters.
“And from whence did she come?” asked Robert.
“They’ve both come from the edge of the hill, if you take my meaning,” said Brockhaven, adding in an undertone, “For God’s sake, will you sober up a little? I need your help.”
Robert missed a beat and then, from the dramatic way his face changed, it was possible to see the instant he realized it was Ellen he had just kissed. In any other circumstances it would have been comical. He stared at Ellen and at me and said, very slowly, “Well, well.”
“Precisely,” said Lord Brockhaven in a biting tone.
“Don’t say you know the girl!” exclaimed the would-be ram.
“I thought I knew her,” answered Robert, taking Ellen’s chin in the crook of a finger, “but I see I was wrong. I’m beginning to think I’d like to become better acquainted, however. Will you come a-Maying with me, angel?”
“Yes, oh yes.” cried Ellen with indecent fervor.
Robert laughed, but threw a questioning look at Brockhaven and then a nod to me.
“Oh, yes,” said Brockhaven. “Guess who? I’ll watch her. Just you keep track of the—what did you call her?—oh, yes, the angel.”
Looking intrigued and a little less tipsy, Robert threw me a speaking grin and gave Peregrine a convivial slap on the leg.
“Perry my good man” he said. “I’ve lost my heart to a new interest. How’d you like to ride with Nan? No, no, don’t try to pull her on the horse with you. Just get off and ride my gelding, and I’ll take your horse.” And so the thing was done—Peregrine dismounting with a huge grin to climb on Robert’s horse in front of the sloe-eyed girl, who, to the delight of the gathering, nestled against him with exactly the same comfortable smile she had before. It was doubtful whether she even noticed the change.
Robert t
ook it in very good part, mounting Peregrine’s horse and pulling Ellen to the saddle in front of him. “That’s Nan,” he said. “ ’Tis no one of us she likes in particular, but all of us in general.”
Brockhaven took me by the hand and led me across the clearing to the thickly growing bushes where he had left his stallion. “It will attract attention if Robert were to leave suddenly, and I don’t want to leave Ellen with that mob, so we’ll simply have to go along. Up with you.” He lifted me sidesaddle on the roan. “Do you want the front or the back?”
“The front or the back of what?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t be so alarmed by my question if you hadn’t spent your time reading smutty books. You know what they say about the wages of sin. I meant, do you want the front or the back of the horse. Never mind, I’ll put you in front. You’ll be less noticeable there.”
I stiffened as I felt his gracefully muscled body slide into the saddle behind me. My blood went racing again, with him so close, and to distract myself I asked him, “If it isn’t an indiscreet question, my lord, what was it that you were doing walking in the forest?”
“I saw what I thought was someone lost in the woods, and rushed chivalrously to the rescue—after leaving the roan tied in the bushes. I didn’t want to risk him putting his foot down a rabbit hole in the dark.”
The stallion shifted beneath us as Brockhaven touched it into a walk, back toward the group in the clearing.
I gave a nervous chuckle. “Don’t you think it would be funny, my lord, if all the girls here were young ladies from the great houses, celebrating incognito?”
“Fortunately, it can’t be so,” he said, “since you and Ellen are the only two masked.” The stallion stumbled a bit, and he steadied me quickly with an arm at my waist. His fingers stretched lightly over the flat of my stomach.